


five people who didn’t believe Ned Stark for one second about Jon’s paternity and one who did

by janie_tangerine



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: 5 Things, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Crack, Crack Treated Seriously, Family Feels, Gen, I Blame Tumblr, Jon Snow is a Targaryen, R plus L equals J, Tumblr Ask Box Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 23:23:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,691
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7594447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>in which Jon actually <i>does</i> look like a Targaryen but Ned still insists it's <i>his</i> bastard son. Good thing the one person who should believe it, in fact, does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	five people who didn’t believe Ned Stark for one second about Jon’s paternity and one who did

**Author's Note:**

> An anon on tumblr asked for crack fic where _Jon looks like Rhaegar but Ned says it's his anyway and Robert is the only one to believe him because Ned is too honorable to lie_. I complied. That's - basically it. Don't expect this to be even remotely serious.
> 
> As usual, nothing belongs to me, for once I didn't have to steal the title from anyone and really, good thing for Ned that Jon actually was born taking after his mother...

5\. _catelyn_

 

“My lord,” Catelyn says, staring at the bundle in her lord husband’s arms, then up at him, then back at the babe again.

For one moment, when she heard _I fathered a bastard son during the war and I am sorry for that, my lady, but I wish that he’s raised alongside our firstborn_ , Catelyn had felt dread rise up through her spine, because _they only haven’t even been married for a full year and they barely knew each other, all right, but she had thought him better than that_ , and then she had _seen_ the bastard son in question. 

“My lady?”

“I don’t recall having married into House Targaryen.”

There’s _no way_  that babe isn’t _somehow_  Targaryen. He has _pale blonde hair_  and _purple eyes_ , gods.

“You haven’t,” Ned replies. He looks down at the babe, then up at her again.

“Is the mother a Targaryen?” Catelyn presses on. She shouldn’t, she _knows_  she shouldn’t, but it’s just so _obvious_  that it can’t be _his_  baby that she just - can’t not.

“ _No_ ,” Ned replies at once, sounding slightly horrified. “Well, she -” He looks pained for a moment, then takes a deep breath. “The Daynes, er, they -” He stops, sounding _even more pained_.

Catelyn takes a step forward and puts a hand on his arm, stopping the flow of words - it’s obvious he’s trying to lie. And he’s not a really good one, not when the proof of it is so evident.

She looks down at the babe again. Targaryen eyes. Definitely. But if  _Ned_  has him he has to be somehow related to him, and -

 _Oh_.

“My lord,” Catelyn says, looking up at the absolutely _despairing_  look on her husband’s face. “I think I understand.”

“You - you do?”

“I think that he _has_  to be related to you, or you wouldn’t be here trying to convince me that you have some lost Targaryen ancestry or that his mother is someone whose name you cannot even utter because it pains you.” Catelyn knows that it seemed like he might marry Ashara Dayne, before Brandon Stark died. “I think there’s just  _one_  reason you might be carrying with you a babe with purple eyes. I - if you _really_  think you can get people to believe it, I won’t say the contrary. But I need to know the truth.”

“You - you have the right of it,” Ned sighs, holding the babe close to his chest a bit tighter. Catelyn looks down at him again.

“Very well. Then he’s _your_  bastard. I will not say the contrary.”

“My lady -”

“ _My lord_. He’s yours, if you say so.”

The grateful look Ned sends her way makes Catelyn think that maybe, just maybe, she hasn’t just done something colossally stupid by agreeing to pretty much commit treason against the crown, but hopefully Ned knows what he’s doing.

 

4\. _jon arryn_

 

 _“_ Ned,” Jon sighs, sitting in front of his former ward in his solar. He decided to visit Winterfell before leaving for King’s Landing for good to take up his duties as Hand of the king.

“Yes, my lord?”

“Ned, you cannot _seriously_  say that your - that the babe you named after me is yours. I’m flattered that you would, but -”

“My lord, Jon is _my_  son.”

“Ned, you don’t need to stain your honor like that when it’s obvious that -”

“He’s _mine_  and the king hasn’t seemed to see a problem with it.”

“Ned, he _will_  notice at some point. Those eyes and hair -”

“The Daynes have purple eyes.”

 _He’s even saying that without flinching now_ , Jon muses. _He used to back when he told me that lie for the first time_.

“And Ashara Dayne was _dark-haired_ , Ned. Not pale.”

“Her relatives were not.”

Jon sighs and decides that there’s no reason to pursue this further. He just hopes Ned doesn’t end up dead because of it when he could have just sent the lad away and spared him a most probable death should King Robert ever find out.

And spared himself to be condemned for high treason, himself. He remembers how _Jon Snow_  had looked next to Ned’s son Robb, with that pale blonde hair and purple eyes, and shudders.

 

3\. _theon_

 

 _“_ Robb, _really_?”

“Why shouldn’t Jon be Father’s?” Robb asks, shrugging. “He says so.”

“Robb, he looks like a _Targaryen_  from history books,” Theon sighs - there’s just no bloody way that kid is actually _Ned Stark’_ s. Unless the mother was a Targaryen, and given what Theon knows of any available female Targaryen alive by the time Jon Snow might have been conceived, he thinks it highly unlikely.

“So what? Father won’t say who’s the mother. Maybe he took after her. And even if it were, what’s the problem?”

Theon would like to ask him _do you realize that if anyone finds out your father could lose his head and your brother or whatever he is to you might die_ , but Robb just looks so _sure_  about it - he doesn’t have the heart to actually go into it.

Also, if they’re happy with it and _no one has actually had the guts to bring it up_  since Lord Stark is so fixed on insisting that no, the lad is actually his, who is he to object? That said, he still has no bloody clue of how the king just doesn’t seem to have any doubts about it.

 

2\. _stannis_

 

Stannis sees Lord Stark’s bastard son exactly once, when they feast at Winterfell after the ending of the Greyjoy rebellion. A quiet, polite child. With _pale blonde hair and purple eyes_. Lord Stark doesn’t bat an eyelid when he says the lad’s his own. _His own brother doesn’t bad an eyelid either_ , and Stannis just doesn’t get how he can’t see it when he can’t seem to go on a rant about how much he loathed Rhaegar Targaryen and his offspring and his breed every other day instead of worrying about ruling.

That said -

Stannis had pondered long and hard before siding with his brother, and it was blood that had called him, not duty. He looks at _Jon Snow_  trailing his legitimate brother and being generally an example of politeness and appropriateness to anyone who’ll talk to him and look up at his supposed father (and brother) in pure adoration.

He thinks about his own loveless marriage and about how his own daughter might never get a sibling that she might love half as much, not that there’s much love lost between him and his own.

Who is he to convince Robert that the lad is _not_  Ned Stark’s, if that’s what Robert wants to believe? No one, probably.

If anything, he’ll keep an eye on the boy and Lord Stark because  _someone_  will have to inform him that he has a claim on the Iron Throne at some point soon, but for now he’ll nod along when Lord Stark assures the world that _yes_ , that’s his bastard and no one else’s.

 

1\. _cersei_

 

There’s _no bloody way_  that lad is _Ned Stark’s_ , Cersei thinks as they ride into Winterfell and sees the infamous Jon Snow standing straight to greet them alongside his siblings and the Greyjoy hostage.

Cersei remembers Rhaegar Targaryen’s face even too well.

There is _no bloody way_.

Ned Stark calmly and politely introduces the lad as _his bastard_.

Cersei will admit openly the paternity of her own children before actually believing that.

“Your Grace,” she tells her husband, may he rot in the Seven Hells if he ever gets there - hopefully soon, if the plan works out.

“Yes?” Robert replies, sounding annoyed. And also bored. But mostly annoyed.

“ _That_  lad is supposed to be _Ned Stark’_ s bastard son?”

“He says he is, so why shouldn’t he be? And let’s not waste time with this nonsense, I didn’t come here for it,” he proclaims, and leaves her side a moment later.

Cersei just _cannot fathom that he doesn’t see it_.

That’s, until Jaime walks up next to her.

“You have _seen_ , haven’t you?”

“I did,” Jaime replies, sounding nonplussed.

“He’s committing _treason_ ,” Cersei hisses.

“Cersei, I somehow think it’s _not_  a good idea to bring it up, or do you wish someone to start thinking about _looks_  when it comes to bastard children?” Jaime hisses back.

Seven hells. That’s - that’s a point.

Maybe now is not a good idea. But later - _later_ , Cersei decides.

 

+1 _robert_

 

 _“_ So, my lady,” Cersei starts, and Robert almost wants to groan out loud. If she starts with that nonsense again -

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“I was wondering, _that_  child is _your_  lord husband’s infamous bastard? The only stain on his honor and the likes?”

“That’d be him,” Lady Catelyn replies, evenly.

“ _His_?”

“That’s what he says. I have no reason to doubt my lord husband,” Lady Catelyn keeps on.

And Robert is frankly done with this ridiculousness. “Woman, how about you stop asking around for things no one cares for? If Ned says that lad’s his, then he’s Ned’s. Have you even _met_ him? Someone like Ned would _never_  lie about something such as this. He’s too bloody honorable. Always told him he was, but what can you do.”

And then he pours himself a generous drink - he needs it, if only to forget this entire conversation is happening.

As if.

Of course that lad is Ned Stark’s, how could anyone assume the contrary after spending just a day with the man? And he’s known Ned for _years_. Ned wouldn’t lie about something such as this, never mind that if Ashara Dayne’s the mother then Ned won’t want to talk about it and there’s plenty of blonde Daynes in Dorne, he doesn’t see what’s the problem with the way the lad looks.

Honestly, no one here has their priorities straight, he thinks as he drinks his fill of some excellent Dornish red that Ned must have saved for important occasions.

Jon Snow, _not_  being Ned Stark’s.

Robert will laugh at the prospect for the entire evening, at least. He’s really surrounded by idiots, and he definitely needs more wine to get through this farce.

As if _Ned_  would lie.

Absolutely fucking ridiculous.

 

End.


End file.
